The Bill Comes Due

      From FEDweek:

As was widely expected, an issue has arisen regarding repayment of Social Security taxes that were not withheld from many federal employees late last year under a Trump administration policy.

Under that policy, the standard 6.2 percent Social Security withholding was not taken from the pay of federal employees who earned less than $4,000 in a biweekly pay period starting last September through year’s end. Employees were not allowed to opt out—many said they wished to—although the Postal Service was free to decline to participate, and did, because of its semi-independent status.

From the outset, concerns arose about the requirement that the amount not withheld over those four months must be repaid (the original deadline of April 30 was extended to year-end 2021). However, because that repayment generally is made through regular payroll withholding, there have been questions about employees who separate before the amount is repaid or who work on an irregular schedule.

According to the NFFE union, those concerns proved justified when the Agriculture Department’s National Finance Center, which administers payroll there and for some other agencies, “issued notices to over 10,000 individuals demanding payment by May 2 or they would incur penalties with interest and be referred to collections.” ...

Grants Available To Help Claimants

      From an announcement posted today in the Federal Register by the Social Security Administration (emphasis added):

We are announcing a new funding opportunity, the Interventional Cooperative Agreement Program (ICAP). The purpose of this new program is to allow us to enter into cooperative agreements to collaborate with States, private foundations, and other non-Federal groups and organizations who have the interest and ability to identify, operate, and partially fund interventional research. The Request for Applications is now open on Grants.gov. ...

ICAP research topics are as follows: 

• Examining the structural barriers in the labor market, including for racial, ethnic, or other underserved communities, including people with disabilities, that increase the likelihood of people receiving or applying for SSDI or SSI benefits; 
• Promoting self-sufficiency by helping people enter, stay in, or return to the labor force, including children and youth; 
• Coordinating planning between private and human services agencies to improve the administration and effectiveness of the SSDI, SSI, and related programs; 
• Assisting claimants in underserved communities apply for or appeal determinations or decisions on claims for SSDI and SSI benefits; and 
• Conducting outreach to children with disabilities who are potentially eligible to receive SSI, and conducting outreach to their parents and guardians. ...

Bipartisan Unhappiness Over Effects Of Field Office Closures

      From Oswego County Today:

 U.S. Rep. John Katko (R, NY-24) today led an effort calling on the Social Security Administration (SSA) to implement new and flexible options for Central New Yorkers who need to submit required documents during the ongoing pandemic.

This effort comes in response to calls Katko has received from Central New Yorkers who have been impacted by the continued closure of SSA field offices in Central New York. Rep. Katko led this bipartisan effort alongside U.S. Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D, VA-7), Dusty Johnson (R, SD-AL), Lauren Underwood (D, IL-14), and Elise Stefanik (R, NY-21).

For more than a year, over 1,500 Social Security field offices across the country, including the locations in Syracuse, Oswego, and Geneva, have been closed to the public due to the ongoing pandemic. Field office closures have particularly impacted Central New Yorkers who need to show original documents, such as a driver’s license, to process SSA claims, obtain a replacement SSA card, or access benefits. ...

     If you're a field office employee, steel yourself. The field offices will reopen to the public before the end of the summer. If things stay on their current trajectory, by July 1 most businesses in the country will have reopened. Baseball games will be played before full crowds. There will be outdoor and indoor concerts before full audiences. It will be impossible to keep the field offices closed for long once we get to that point. Field office employees can talk all they want about ventilation and cubicles being too close together and Covid variants and so on but the public won't care. Andrew Saul is jerk but the agency will be within its rights to reopen the field offices once we get a higher percentage of the population vaccinated. I would guess that the agency will go back to something like telework as it was before Andrew Saul came along but the field offices aren't going to stay closed indefinitely.

Retirement Benefits Slowdown

      From Bloomberg News:

The rate of growth in retired Americans who collect Social Security has slowed down sharply, and the drop may be due in part to the disproportionate number of deaths from Covid-19 among the elderly.

The number of people who received retirement benefits from the Social Security Administration rose 900,000 to 46.4 million in March, the smallest year-over-year gain since April 2009.

While the Office of the Chief Actuary at the government agency said it is still too early to assess the impact from Covid-19, the year-over-year change appears to reflect excess deaths. About 447,000 people who died from the virus were 65 or older, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or about 80% of total deaths. ...

     I'm with the Office of Chief Actuary. Deaths among retirees may not be the only thing going on. Remember that the number of SSI claims filed is down sharply. That is widely attributed to field office closures. There could also be a slowdown in the number of retirement claims filed due to field office closures. We know there's a slowdown in processing people onto benefits after claims are taken which would have the same effect. Also note that the weirdness in the chart in 2001 and 2002 with no Covid-19 to explain it.

SSA Management Slow In Reviewing Union Contracts

      From Government Executive:

Unions at the Social Security Administration reported that the agency’s leadership continues to stall on efforts to reopen contracts negotiated during the Trump administration, three months after President Biden told agencies to do so via executive order and a week after a self-imposed deadline for SSA to review its collective bargaining agreements. ...

In March, the Office of Personnel Management issued guidance on how agencies should implement the order, which instructed agencies to reopen union contracts “as soon as is practicable.”

Later that month, following complaints of slow movement by Social Security Administration leadership to implement Biden’s workforce policies, officials at the agency said it was in the midst of a review of all labor contracts and that officials had asked the unions for their input. The self-imposed deadline for that process was April 23.

But a week after that deadline, the labor groups said they have not seen any new action by SSA leadership to reopen old agreements. ...

The Eric Conn Saga Goes On And On

     From the Richmond Register:

A Kentucky judge has ordered court officials to purge hundreds of lawsuits filed against clients by a disgraced disability attorney who masterminded the largest Social Security fraud in history, the Lexington Herald Leader reported.

Eric Conn pleaded guilty in 2017 to bribing doctors to falsify medical records for his thousands of clients and then paying a judge to approve their lifetime disability benefits. His plea agreement would have put him in prison for 12 years, but a few weeks before his sentencing Conn fled the country, leading federal agents on a six-month chase that ended when he was caught outside a Pizza Hut in Honduras. He was sentenced to an additional 15 years for his escape.

Before his downfall, Conn would pay doctors $400 to evaluate clients and then file small-claims lawsuits to recoup the cost, according to the lawsuit.

Pike Circuit Judge Eddy Coleman ruled this week that Conn wasn’t eligible to practice Social Security disability law during the time he was suing clients. Coleman said there were still hundreds of Conn’s small-claims actions on the Pike District Court docket. He ordered the court clerk to purge them all. ...

Does This Come As A Surprise?

      Look nearly all the way down to the next to the bottom circle on this graph, if that's the right term for it. You'll have to click on the image to see it full size and even then you may have to put your face up to your computer screen. What was the second most likely group to donate to Donald Trump -- the disabled. You'd think Republicans would care more about this group.

Independent Agency?

     Mark J. Warshawsky, who was a Trump policy appointee at Social Security but who got forced out when the Biden Administration came in, writes for the Baltimore Sun about SSA's odd "independent agency" status. Surprisingly, I don’t fully disagree with him. The Social Security Administration can never be truly independent. It's too restrained by the budget process and the Office of Management and Budget's veto power over regulations. I think that cabinet status is long overdue for the agency. By a wide measure it's the largest and most consequential of the independent agencies. However, unlike Mr. Warshawsky I believe the Commissioner should serve at the pleasure of the President. A highly partisan figure like Andrew Saul (or Mark Warshawsky) should never be serving at Social Security, much less during an Administration he's at odds with.  Let's end this "independent agency" farce. It hasn't worked.